A couple brands coming out with production hollow DW SUPs including KT crossing and I think Starboard aswell?
I'm obsessed with weight and ideally want the lightest board possible but obviously durability is a consideration aswell.
So using the KT crossing as a example:
Hollow 8"4 106 L is 4.9kg
Standard 8"4 106L is 5.4kg
so a different of 500g
My main question is the hollow board going to be
more boy ent? As in if 106L was optimal for my weight/abilty/conditions in the standard construction am I then able to use a 95L hollow board which would be lighter again
Compared to an AK 7'6 x 19 114L (6.1kg) the Starboard Zero (hollow) 8'2 x 18 101L (4.4kg) sits fractionally deeper in the water.
We are going to see even lighter hollow boards as they figure out the construction. The biggest win is not the weight, it is the swing-weight - ie. the weight in the nose and tail. Carbon/Nomex honeycomb construction requires a mold but can be very light. There will be a lot of iteration getting the foilboxes set in a way that is durable, but once that is nailed off we go. The only issue is molds are expensive, prepreg is expensive, nomex honeycomb is expensive.
Select to expand quotejondrums said..
We are going to see even lighter hollow boards as they figure out the construction. The biggest win is not the weight, it is the swing-weight - ie. the weight in the nose and tail. Carbon/Nomex honeycomb construction requires a mold but can be very light. There will be a lot of iteration getting the foilboxes set in a way that is durable, but once that is nailed off we go. The only issue is molds are expensive, prepreg is expensive, nomex honeycomb is expensive.
i'm not sure if there are too many weight gains still to be made - they've been making hollow composite windsurfers since the 1990's so it's not new technology.
